Reflections

If I've learned one thing from trying to do my family tree..it's that I am in awe of how little I actually know about my family.  I know basically nothing about either of my grandparents, other than their names, and for one set I don't even have that.  I will be able to find out names, but I struggle to come to terms with the fact that I am not likely to know much about WHO these people were.  I don't have stories, I have few photographs and I have very few tangible pieces of 'evidence' that some of them ever existed.

It's led me to look hard at my life, about how little I am sharing with my own boys about stories of how I grew up, the people who were part of it.  I've decided to write down A LOT of things, in the hopes that if a) I never share these stories, or b) if i do and they forget..that they will be there for future generations to be able to have a look at.  I suppose in some ways, even doing this blog, is a step towards that.  I've pretty much decided to cover the 'major' events, but am trying to decide what, if any, of the 'lesser' events to include.  Of course, I also have to find some time to actually DO it....saying I am going to and actually doing it are two very different things.

I know life is short, sometimes way too short, and people are taken from us too soon.  In researching the paternal side of my family tree I have come to realise that though my dad and I were inseparable in a lot of ways, I really knew nothing about his life before I was born.  I don't know much about his military service..other than the little pieces of information I have been able to glean from one piece of his military file.  I don't know for sure who his parents were, or what his life was like growing up as a black child/adolescent/man in  mid-1900's America.

I've lived on three different continents in as many decades, had a vast amount of experiences on each one, and yet I still struggle with the feeling that I am missing something; not necessarily literally, but metaphorically/psychologically/spiritually.  Having said that, there's little I would change in the course of my life, and so far there is only one thing I truly regret.

I'm not getting any younger...so hopefully I figure it out soon.